Trust, originally uploaded by Nashua Telegraph.

We received an email recently from someone inquiring about this image.
Here’s part of the message “…After the emotional impact, I began to
ask questions about it. It came with no attribution. For on example, I
find the lighting to be amazing for a candid news shot. And then there
is the question of how a journalist could have been in the position to
get such a picture. Actually, what I found with Goggle strongly suggests
that it is legitimate.”

It is legit. It was taken by Aaron Thompson, a staff photographer with
the Daily News Journal in Murfreesboro, Tenn. How could he have been in
that position? Without talking to him directly but speaking from
experience I can say by being smart, sensitive and gaining the trust of
the family and friends who attended that funeral.

Let me tell you there are times where it’s very uncomfortable to be a
news photographer. Covering the ugly side of life can be difficult.
This is what we do and, good or bad, drama leads to strong journalistic
photos. They stick with you (the reader) more perhaps than anything that
could be written about this sad event. When I spoke recently at the New
England Press Association workshops I was talking about the impact of
photography in newspapers. I asked rhetorically what anyone in the
group could remember being written about 9/11. No response. But when I
put some memorable photographs up on the screen there were nods all
around.

I can think right now the pictures I made at the funeral of John
Ogonowski, who was killed on 9/11, and the photos staff photographer Bob
Hammerstrom has made of similar events. Most recently of Anthony
Kumungu’s funeral. He was a soldier, too. Both of us were able to put
ourselves in positions to make particularly dramatic photos by showing
respect and gaining that trust.

Yeah, the light is nice. Sometimes we’re blessed with it. Quite often
we’re not. Really, conditions are rarely ideal for us. On any given
assignment it’s going to be too dark, too wet, hot, cold, late, early,
noisy, full of mosquitoes, boring, slippery, smelly.

Whatever. But I have to say no matter what I run in to it’ll never be as
bad as having a flag handed to me that draped my dad’s
casket.

-Don Himsel
photo editor

Tags: Aaron Thompson, funeral, Iraq, Murfreesboro